Baby Siamang (trying out some new PP techniques)

Rather loved this shot of a baby Siamang in Fota Park (one of my favourite animals, the Siamang), and thought it needed some PP work - but wasn't sure what to do, I played about for ages, and really liked what I came up with. Critique on how to improve this sort of PP welcome as I'm not good with PP - but I do love this shot <3 I think it's the eyes



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I think it works Z - cute shot

I'll pass on some advice learned in an online course about vignetting. The instructor said to always leave one corner normal to help draw the eye through the subject and the photo. I vignette almost every photo I process but have never tried this. I love your treatment with the sepia look. There's enough detail remaining in the subject to make it interesting.

Thanks Bob - that's interesting, and something to try out - though I don't know how it would look from my mind - it seems like it would make the picture unbalanced - but certainly worth a try!

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I Like the pose but not keen on sepia. B & W conversion, shadow/highlight filter to bring out a bit more detail and a smidgeon of sharpening.

I must agree I like the B&W version better but would also look for a way to brighten just the face as if a ray of light were upon it, drawing the ape's attention to it. This might be the key to opening up the top right corner without a vignette, indicating that light source.

Personally I prefer the sepia - as it is what I was after - but thanks for the edit anyway, it's rather cool - just not what I was after

I do like the idea of the light source Bob!

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Zoundz that photograph is hauntingly beautiful so I put my advice to work to see I could reshape the light. The ape is certainly looking at that top right corner but the vignetted area doesn't match the highlights in the ape's eyes. I used CS5 to Render/Lighting and direct a lightsource from that corner. You have a beautiful frameable picture here and should you reprocess the original I'd be curious if my idea would be more appealing to you. Look at the face and upper right corner. I was sloppy about the bottom right corner but only wanted to demonstrate the beam of light from the top.

Your Original

Thank you Bob Can you perhaps post the original alongside your edit, as I can't see much difference at the moment flicking between them. I can see that there is difference, but I can't quite see where

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I love the composition, the subject is too cute but not too keen on the sepia,it's a bit flat, not much tonal value,not enough balance between the light and the dark,if that makes sense.

What are you using to PP?